The artist I have chosen for a possible lesson of instruction is William Kentridge, featured in an episode of Art:21 on Compassion and in the short documentary, Anything is Possible. William Kentridge is a South African artist who creates films out of large-scale charcoal drawings that he photographs. Kentridge uses an intense process of drawing, erasing, photographing, and then using computers to create the film. What strikes me the most about Kentridge is his interest within his work in political issues, for example, apartheid in Africa, a close issue for Kentridge.
I think that Kentridge can inspire great products in the art room. I am fascinated both by his ideas and his artmaking process. For a possible project, kids could create films about a social issue relating to compassion that strikes them (for example, poverty, hunger, homelessness). To get kids thinking about this idea, the teacher could show the following short documentary on human rights: http://www.humanrights.com/#/what-are-human-rights (which by the way, is available for free to get by DVD if you sign up for it). Speaking from experience, this is a great resource to get kids thinking about many different social and political issues that are happening in our contemporary world, and it cane inspire a great discussion on the issues that are plaguing our world. Though most of the time I try to stray away from copying an artists technique exactly, I think that kids would really enjoy creating a stop motion film about one of these topics. However, instead of creating a drawing like Kentridge, kids could feel free to photograph their film using any props that they feel necessary. This allows for a lot of great experimentation with modeling clay, paper folding, props, drawing, and body movement. Experimentation such as this allows for a lot of hands on learning that can sometimes be much more effective than demonstrating or asking all of the students to use the same materials for the video.
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/william-kentridge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmvK7A84dlk
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